


Inside The Cutting Edge Of The Future

by Shwoo



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Claustrophobia Warning, Gen, Helplessness warning, I love anime Rotom Dex so much, Post-Pokemon Sun & Moon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:20:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28382355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shwoo/pseuds/Shwoo
Summary: The Rotom Pokedex meets some engineers working on the next big thing in Rotom technology. They're not very good at it.
Kudos: 5





	Inside The Cutting Edge Of The Future

The mail was late again, and Rotom was just about ready to give up on it. It floated back and forth in front of its pigeon hole in the Aether Foundation break room, muttering to itself, and wondering if there was some sort of postal conspiracy going on. If there was any other reason the mail kept arriving so much later than the post office claimed it would, Rotom couldn't think of one.

Though Rotom didn't normally get a lot of mail. Mail was slow, error-prone, and not very interactive. Also, print media tended to be big and unwieldy, but it was designed for big, unwieldy humans, so Rotom could let that one pass. It wasn't humans' fault they were made of weird proteins instead of sensible ionised gas.

Another minute went by, and still nothing. Rotom had received letters from Kanto that had got here faster than this.

Professor Burnett entered the room, and Rotom dashed over to her. "Professor! It's been six minutes and twenty-one seconds since the mail should have arrived, and it's still not here!" It flashed up a timer, still counting up, to emphasise its point. "Do you think something happened? By my calculations, there's a 11.3% chance that a Wailord crossed paths with--"

"It's okay, Rotom," Burnett interrupted. She held up a thin package. "I knew you were excited, so I picked it up from the docks."

Rotom stared. "Thank you, Professor!" it managed. It took the package from her and ripped it open, revealing the latest edition of Pocket Powerhouses, a magazine about Pokemon-related advances in technology. Its editors had never bothered to put out a digital edition, despite the magazine's focus on technology, so Rotom had never paid much attention to it in the past. But now it had a good reason.

It was a little disappointed by the cover, though. There was an Alakazam and a conveyor belt of spoons, and the idea of mass-produced Twisted Spoons was pretty interesting, but... "I was hoping I'd be on the cover..."

"I told you," said Burnett, smiling a little. "You would have known if you were."

Professor Burnett was very knowledgeable about these kinds of things, and she'd been a huge help with Rotom's media debut. Rotom had done its best to repay the favour by helping her with her research in its free time, although she'd said that it didn't need to.

It awkwardly opened the magazine and flipped through it as quickly as it could. It caught a brief glimpse of itself, beeped in triumph, and dropped the magazine. "Hey!" it said.

Burnett picked the magazine up. "Here, let me help. I want to see your interview too!"

She held it open to the two-page spread, which had a story about Rotom on the left, and an interview on the right. The headline read "Pokedex Form "Perfect" for this Hard-Working Pokemon", above a very well-composed photograph of Rotom.

"Look, they called me hard-working!" said Rotom, pointing at the headline. Then it turned its attention to the interview. Burnett had warned him that they might have edited it down a bit, and it was anxious to see what they'd kept.

They had definitely edited the interview. In fact, in some places it was hard to see any logic in what they'd kept and what had been deleted. There was a part where Rotom had been asked what it was like to be a Pokemon, and it hadn't even been able to answer that one. It had prepared a lot of answers for what it was like to be a Pokedex, but that question had stumped it. It had been a lot of things, but it had never not been a Pokemon.

It had said something similar to the interviewer, and they'd actually printed it, like it meant something.

Finding deletions was harder. It ran a brief search, then said "Hey. Where's my analysis of Nagadanel's attack power relative to Poipole? That was cutting edge research!" It made a chin scratching motion. "I don't understand their priorities."

"Rotom, I think they wanted to talk about you, not Nagadanel," replied Burnett. "Maybe Nagadanel could get its own profile one day."

"I wonder if they have magazines in Nagadanel's world..." said Rotom. It would have loved to go back to Nagadanel's there to find out, but opening new Ultra Wormholes wasn't a research priority right now. So it just had to hope that either Nagadanel or Solgaleo came back for another visit. Rotom missed them both.

It finished skimming the interview, and went on to the very complimentary story on the left. "They really liked me!" About half of the article was praise directed at the inventor of the Rotom Pokedex, a Pokemon trainer from Kalos, but that was all right. Rotom agreed with them. It hoped to meet that trainer some day, and say thank you.

"That's right!" said Burnett, who was reading over Rotom's shoulder. "You must have impressed them."

Rotom reached the end of the article, and if it had been holding the magazine, it would have dropped it again. "Bibbibbi! Listen!" It started reading out loud. "'The wild success of the Rotom Pokedex design in bringing this notorious species of pranksters under control --' I've never pulled a prank in my life!" It made a throat-clearing noise. That wasn't the interesting part. "Bi... Brings up tantalising possibilities. According to several reports, everything from Rotom-controlled drones to Rotom-controlled smartphones are already under development at several large companies.' They're making Rotom phones?"

"Oh, you didn't hear about that?" said Burnett. She smiled at it. "I think you might have some new friends soon, Rotom!"

"Bibbibbi?" said Rotom. "New... friends? That's amazing!" Becoming a Pokedex had opened up Rotom's entire world. It had learned so much, and it loved that, even more than it loved not being attacked whenever it arrived somewhere new. Being a phone would be similar to being a Pokedex, it imagined. "Large companies? Do they mean large Alolan companies?"

There weren't a lot of those around. They probably meant foreign companies, like Silph Co, or maybe Macro Cosmos.

"Research is popping up in all kinds of places," said Burnett. "You never know."

Rotom beeped to itself, and wondered if any of these companies were looking for help from an expert.

It turned out that most of the research into Rotom phones was taking place in distant regions like Unova, but Rotom kept searching, eventually coming across the website of a small company called Technical Solutions For Alola, who claimed to be working on a prototype. Rotom couldn't find an email address anywhere, but they did list a street address.

So Rotom had taken some time off, and now it was hovering in front of the shabby-looking building in Hau'oli City that housed Technical Solutions for Alola's office space.

"An automatic door..." it muttered. It'd have to follow a human in.

This would be so much simpler if automatic doors also had buttons. Rotom had often thought that, and had once pitched the idea to an architect it had met. The architect had immediately shut it down, saying that wild Pokemon would learn what the buttons did and use them to wander inside. But that was the point, in Rotom's opinion. It was technically a wild Pokemon, and it needed to get in.

It waited for thirty seconds, then lost patience. It pressed itself against the door and peered inside. "Hello?"

The lobby seemed empty, and kind of dusty, but Rotom tapped on the door anyway. "I'd like to come in for a visit!"

Nothing.

Rotom looked up and down the street, but the only movement was a Rattata scurrying past. Rotom absent-mindedly took a picture of it, then turned its attention back to the building.

It could go find a sympathetic human, or a Pokemon big enough to activate the doors, but it hadn't come all this way just to leave again. It floated up the side of the building to an air conditioning vent, withdrew its arms, and squeezed through one of the gaps in the slits. It was a hot day, but luckily, the air conditioning didn't seem to be on. Rotom had been in an active air conditioning vent once, and it hadn't been a fun time.

It made its way through the vent, mapping the building as it did. It passed a lot of rooms, on a lot of floors, and they were all empty. "Did I get the wrong building...?" it muttered. Maybe this one was abandoned. Rotom hoped there were at least some interesting Pokemon living here in that case.

It was thinking of giving up for the day, when a human voice echoed down the vent, too distorted to make out. Rotom said "Bi!" and set off towards it. If it wasn't these Technical Solutions For Alola people, it would at least be able to ask for directions.

Someone else had started speaking by the time Rotom was close enough to make out the words. "--will work as it stands, but it's useless unless we have a Rotom to test it with."

"That's me!" said Rotom, picking up the pace. "I'm a Rotom!"

"No," said the first voice. "The prototype cannot be activated until the efficacy of its safety systems is beyond reproach. Our number one priority must remain to keep pace with end-user expectations."

Rotom thought it could probably help with that as well, once it figured out what what any of it meant. It could catch the meaning behind human speech as well as any other Pokemon, but nuance was tricky from this distance.

"Well, I've made some progress on that, Lowell," said the second voice, as Rotom turned a vertical corner. "It turns out the little hellions can't pass through insulation. It's not a permanent solution, but it should prevent them from occupying the entire phone at once."

Rotom slowed. By hellions, did he mean Rotom? At this distance, it was hard to pretend he didn't. If these people were making Rotom phones, why would they need to restrict what the Rotom could do? That would just make it less effective for everyone.

This person didn't even seem to like Rotom, so why was he working on Rotom technology in the first place?

"It'll take more than insulation to get the plasma Pokemon under control," said the first voice, probably Lowell. "Perhaps we should touch base with Rotom trainers and ask them how they achieve that feat. Oh, have you given any further thought to my shock treatment proposal?"

Rotom stopped short in front of the vent leading into the room. Cautiously, it peered through the slits, to see two humans, sitting at one end of a long, messy table. One of the humans wore glasses and an ill-fitting suit, and the other was a shorter man with dark green hair and an Alola shirt.

Rotom had intended to call out to them when it arrived, but it was beginning to have second thoughts. Shock treatment? It wanted to believe that Lowell just wanted to give their Rotom Phone a nice snack every so often, but it was close enough to know what he was really talking about.

"I told you, we can't automate that," said the green-haired man, who was the second speaker. "It would be up to the user, and you know what they're like. We might as well make a voice-activated phone, if that's what you want. It would be faster than locking a Rotom inside it."

"Bi?" said Rotom, unintentionally.

"No!" snapped Lowell. He leaned forward. "Innovation, Farrell, innovation. Dynamic responses to novel problems. The power of living, thinking electricity, correctly harnessed, could double consumer loyalty. Even triple it!"

Rotom did its best to listen, but it couldn't stop thinking about what that other human, Farrell, had said about "locking". His choice of words would have been worrying enough, but there was extra meaning hanging behind the words. He was talking about shoving someone in an appliance and never letting them out again. Ever.

Calling Rotom "hellions" and talking about shocking them was bad, but the idea of entering something and not being able to leave was bad on another level. It was viscerally repulsive, Even for a Rotom who'd found its perfect home and never wanted to be anything else. It was like... trying to draw power from a socket that wasn't hooked up to anything, or reading data that turned out to be corrupted. It didn't make sense, and it didn't belong.

Farrell sighed loudly. "I'm doing my best, but we still can't go much further without a Rotom to test the prototype. I'll keep an eye out for electrical surges-- The Aether Foundation denied our request."

Rotom fought to stay where it was, and lost. It flew back down the vent as fast as it could, barely managing the tight turns, until the humans' voices faded into the background. It took all its self-control not to just leave its Pokedex right there, to prove that it still could.

It just had to get somewhere normal and sensible, where people talked about normal, sensible things. Then it would be able to think again.

Rotom hovered over the beach outside Professor Kukui's house, holding its camera steady despite its anger. "Can you believe it? They don't care at all!"

Below, Incineroar and Lycanoroc leapt at each other, then sprang apart. They seemed more focused on their battle than what Rotom was saying, but that wasn't really a surprise. They'd always been serious about training, which was why they'd asked Rotom to record them today. But it really had to get this out.

"They can't treat Pokemon like this!" it continued, as Lycanroc barely dodged Incineroar's fangs. "Trapping and shocking them! They're criminals! Criminals!" Surely there was some sort of law against this.

Lycanroc jumped out of close range, and revealed that it had been at least half listening by suggesting Rotom solve the problem by knocking the building down. Incineroar responded that the humans probably wouldn't like that.

Rotom displayed a shocked face. "I can't do that! That's vandalism!" It had never been personally interested in fighting anyway. It knew a few moves, but it never used them, except for for data collection. "I know!!" it said. "I'll stop them... with words!"

Lycanroc agreed that Rotom knew a lot of those, although Incineroar seemed sceptical.

Incineroar had always been a cynic, even as a Litten. Rotom knew what it was doing.

And it had to do something.

Rotom hurried back towards the city, at top ground-level speed. It knew it was going to have to choose its words very carefully if it wanted to convince those humans they were making a mistake, so it thought for a second, then wrote down two sentences.

With that taken care of, Rotom started work on one of its side projects: a human translation of all the Pokemon speech in Alolan Detective Laki.

That kind of analysis wouldn't work for every show. There were a lot of Pokemon who actors who just said irrelevant things when the script called for them to speak, like that they were hungry, or were sick of doing retakes. There was one particular science fiction-loving Krokorok who only ever said "I'm Krokorok", no matter what was going on onscreen. As long as the tone of voice was right, the humans couldn't tell the difference.

But Laki's Smeargle was a professional. As long as it was on camera, it was a detective's assistant working a case, until the cameras went off again. That wasn't the only thing that made Alolan Detective Laki the best show on television, but it was a nice bonus.

The project was slow going, though. Human language was so limited compared Pokemon speech. All the meaning had to be chopped up and bundled into separate words, and then the words needed to slot together according to complex rules. Rotom could only speak human language at all thanks to its dictionaries, which handed most of the transitions automatically, and even they couldn't translate everything Rotom wanted to say. And they barely helped at all to translate the things other Pokemon said. There was never a perfect translation, but that wasn't going to stop Rotom from trying.

Currently, it was working on season two, episode fourteen: Just Go With The Floette. Laki and Smeargle had gone undercover on a cruise ship full of Kalosian tourists, on the trail of a painting that had been stolen from the Lumiose Museum a couple of weeks before.

Laki had worked out that the painting was hidden in one of the passenger's cabins, and broken in with Smeargle. Smeargle had lifted the false panel away from the wall, and said "Smeargle!"

And those two syllables had so many implications. It implied something that it had expected to be there was not there. It indicated shock. It indicated fear. It indicated worry. It indicated hope and trust. How was it supposed to put all that into a few human words? Humans could be wordy, but they liked conciseness as much as Pokemon did. As a successful playwright, Rotom knew that.

It reached the building and went in through a high-up open window, still thinking about human translation.

It knew this was possible. That Kantonian Meowth from Team Rocket could do it, although Rotom still wasn't convinced he wasn't some kind of new type of Pokemon. Meowth had given Rotom some story about eavesdropping on etiquette classes when it had pressed him, and if that was true, Meowth had either developed a completely undocumented kind of Ability or move, or he was a genius. Or both. Rotom still couldn't even pronounce human words without a synthesiser, let alone keep all the grammar rules in mind.

It was going to have to keep looking into Meowth's talents. Team Rocket had been laying low lately, though.

It was outside the door to the Technical Solutions for Alola offices now. As interesting as Laki and Pokemon speech were, it had to focus. It steeled itself, and then threw open the door.

It was definitely the same room as before. Both technicians were hunched over their long table, in the same positions as when Rotom had last seen them. Neither of them looked up, even as the door banged against the opposite wall.

Rotom displayed an angry face, and said "Ahem."

Farrell glanced in Rotom's direction for a second.

Good enough. Rotom read out the dressing down it had prepared. "Your prototype is a trap! Cruelty to Pokemon is against the law!"

After a second, Lowell said "Farrell, what is that thing?"

"I am not a thing!" said Rotom. "I am--"

"It's a Rotom Pokedex," said Farrell.

Lowell looked puzzled. "Rotom Pokedex? Are Rotom Pokedexii available to consumers in the international marketplace?"

"Yes," said Farrell, while Rotom tried to work out what exactly Lowell had just said. It got the meaning, but why those words? Human language could be so confusing.

"And its functions are maintained by a real plasma Pokemon within the electronics?" said Lowell. He peered at Rotom.

Rotom floated a little way back, uncomfortable. It tried to recover, and said "You cannot design a device with no way out! It's..." It paused as it tried to think of the right word. The Pokedex's dictionary wasn't equipped for this. Or maybe humans just didn't have words that could explain why electric appliances needed exits. It probably didn't come up much.

"Technical Solutions For Alola works hard to cultivate a positive experience for people and Pokemon, and your concerns have been taken on board," said Lowell, in a soothing tone.

"Good!" said Rotom. At least they were listening now. "First of all, you--"

Lowell raised his voice. "In fact, we're so confident that our design is effective that we're willing to offer you an exclusive, one time only, uh, look inside." He rummaged through the mess on the table, and muttered "Where did it go?"

Rotom felt sick again, but managed to force it away. "I am not changing form to your prototype! Aren't you listening to me? Th-there's no way out!" It knew what it had heard earlier.

Farrell lazily waved an arm. "Calm down, calm down. It's no crueller than a Pokeball."

"R... Th.. That's different!" Rotom managed. It was speaking in their language, and they still didn't seem to understand. What else could it say? Were they doing this on purpose?

"How?" said Farrell.

"It..." said Rotom. "It's different! It's like..." It kept finding semi-appropriate words, like "terror", or "ending", or "vertigo", but they all came with other pieces of meaning, and none of them had enough strength of feeling. It tried anyway. "It's... Rotom!"

It put a hand over its screen in exasperation. That wasn't even human language.

"Riveting," said Farrell.

"We have twenty combined years of experience in this field," said Lowell, without looking up from the desk. "Have you ever heard of the award-winning Magnemite Motor? Circumstances prevented a wide release, but the idea was very sound."

"Magnemite Motor?" said Rotom. It had never heard of anything like that. It doubted it had won that many awards.

"You see, motors work by placing a free-rotating electromagnet inside--" Farrell began.

"I know how motors work!" yelled Rotom. It was powering a small motor right now. It didn't really do anything, but it was nice to have.

Lowell muttered "Found it!" and proffered a small, teal smartphone at Rotom. "Please, young man, take a visual inspection, free of charge."

Rotom took it. "This is your prototype? It's not even orange or red!" If something was made for a Rotom, it should at least be the right colour.

"We are investigating alternate avenues in our branding opportunities," said Lowell. Suddenly, he jabbed Rotom with something in his other hand.

There was a sharp jolt of electricity.

Rotom struggled back to consciousness. It remembered a lot of noise and movement, but not much else, and now it couldn't see or hear anything. The electricity must have been strong enough to force it out of its Pokedex, and although it had obviously made it back, it must have been too delirious to complete the merger. Rotom hoped it hadn't done anything too embarrassing while it was out.

Lowell had definitely shocked it on purpose. You couldn't fool a detective of Rotom's caliber. These humans weren't just bad at working with Pokemon. They were dangerous, and Rotom was beginning to regret coming alone.

First things first. Rotom needed to be able to see. Its eyes felt strangely heavy, almost stuck shut, but finally it forced them open, to a strangely blurry image of the ceiling. As it waited for its vision to clear, it turned its attention to the Pokedex's memory chips. 

Something was wrong. The reboot function wasn't where it was supposed to be, and some paths seemed to be completely blocked off. And the fit was strange. Rotom had got so used to conforming itself to the Pokedex's internal structure that it barely noticed it anymore, and this was wrong. Wrong and a little uncomfortable.

Lowell and Farrell appeared in Rotom's field of vision, looking down at it. Farrel was speaking, but Rotom still couldn't hear well enough to make out the words, or even the intentions. It tried to float up and out of their reach, but all it did was shake a little.

It finally figured out how to reboot itself, but that was wrong as well. It was initialising an... address book? It didn't have an address book. It did have an Internet browser, but this one was put together completely differently to the one it was used to. And it had never had any kind of card game. None of this was right. It couldn't find its Pokemon database, or its dictionaries, or... anything.

This wasn't its Pokedex. It couldn't be. Rotom wasn't sure what exactly it had dived into, because the merger was going unusually slowly, but it wasn't its Pokedex.

Rotom shook some more, and blinked rapidly. Its vision cleared slightly, and so did its hearing. 

Lowell recoiled back. "Why does it have eyes? That's so creepy!"

Farrell looked more closely. "Hm. Transparent. That's progress."

Rotom gave up on getting a more comfortable fit, and tried to push its arms through. It was a bit rusty at this, but it still remembered how to do it. Its Pokedex had convenient arm paddles built into its design, which were made of the same material as the rest of it, and very easy to free and retract. The paddles were slightly slower and clumsier than natural arms, but it was nice to be able to touch things without worrying about shocking them.

At the moment, Rotom would settle for any arms at all.

It was definitely doing the same things as usual, but there seem to be some kind of obstruction in this device's coating. It strained against the sides, but it could barely even separate its arms out of the rest of its plasma body, let alone push them out. In fact, it could barely move at all. Rotom had always been slow to get comfortable in a new body, but it had never hit actual resistance before. Never ever. It was like this thing was designed to keep it contained.

The realisation hit Rotom all at once, and if it could have shaken even harder, it would have. It was in the phone. It was definitely in the phone. It was in the phone and whatever those inventors had done to restrict it had actually worked.

Rotom tried to form a mouth, but that wasn't happening either. It slowed its racing electrical current, and did its best to think. The first thing it needed to do was... It needed to get out of here. That was what it needed to do. So... to do that, it had to extricate itself from the phone. That shouldn't be too hard, if it just calmed down and took things one step at a time. Just like in the lifestyle show it had watched with Professor Kukui the other week.

Lowell picked Rotom up, giving it a brief glimpse of its Pokedex, now in Farrell's hands. Rotom strained towards it, then remembered what it was doing. As soon as it clumped itself together, it could find the phone's exit point and get back home.

But it couldn't seem to do that, either. It could stretch its body through the phone, but it couldn't pull itself back in.

"Where's the override on this thing..." muttered Farrell, from somewhere out of view.

It really was trapped. Rotom had technically known that from the beginning, but it hadn't seemed fully real, until now. The whole concept was so... impossible. It wasn't a thing that existed.

It kept trying to pull together as Lowell tapped a few places on the phone screen. One of the blocked off paths inside the phone became accessible, and instinctively, Rotom stretched towards it. Then it stopped. It wouldn't help to get itself even more trapped.

Lowell cleared his throat and spoke slowly and clearly. "Rotom. Play the default ringtone."

Rotom wasn't sure how to do that. It was also sure that it could find out, but it didn't bother trying. It was usually happy to help people, but its patience was being severely tested at the moment. They could find some other Rotom to help them test their horror dungeon phone design.

Lowell frowned at it, then covered Rotom's eyes with his free hand. "That's better. Rotom, play the default ringtone."

Rotom wanted to tell him what it thought of his demands, but it didn't have a mouth at the moment. Lowell wouldn't have understood, but it would have made it feel better.

"Perhaps the language settings have been miscalibrated," said Lowell. He cleared his throat again. "Motisma. Joue, uh... la sonnerie. La sonnerie... par défaut?"

Rotom didn't even recognise the words Lowell was using now, but the meaning behind them hadn't changed. Rotom wasn't going to do what he wanted, not matter how much he tried to confuse it.

Lowell took his hand away from Rotom's eyes and turned to Farrell. "It's broken."

Farrell took the phone and attached a cable to it. Rotom rushed for the cable, but some unexplainable force pushed it back. The phone was definitely sending information through the cable, to what appeared to be a handheld tablet, but somehow, it could tell that Rotom wasn't information.

Farrell pulled out the cable, handed the phone back to Lowell, and said "The phone's working fine. I think Rotom is just ignoring you."

"What?" said Lowell. He held Rotom right up to his face. "Don't ignore me!"

Rotom wished it had arms, so it could pull down its eyelid at him.

Lowell put Rotom down, and said "We'll workshop that later. For now, I recommend we examine the functions of this Pokedex. I believe that the secret of Rotom's cooperation is within."

Rotom rattled against the table as hard as it could. It had to get back in and stop this. Its data was safe from being read or altered, but they didn't know that, and they could easily corrupt it, or even break the Pokedex itself trying to get in. Rotom wouldn't put anything past these two.

After a few seconds, Farrell said "See? There's no way to turn it on."

That, he was right about. The Pokedex couldn't be operated from the outside, at least not without taking it apart completely. There were no native input functions that didn't have to go through a Rotom first. It was a security feature, and a pretty great one, in Rotom's opinion.

"Give it me!" said Lowell. After a second, he added, "that rattling is getting annoying. Let's try it, uh... _undertake this challenge_ in the break room."

"Good idea," said Farrell. "It'll tire itself out eventually."

They left the room, Lowell muttering under his breath.

They didn't know who they were dealing with. Rotom was great at going for long periods without sleep. One time, it had watched an entire all-night marathon of classic Pokestar movies, and been completely fine the next day, aside from losing track of time a few times while resting its eyes. As long as this phone held a charge, it would never tire itself out.

Rotom waited until it heard the door close, then stopped trying to move and took stock, like a good detective should. It was running out of options, but there had to be some way out of this.

It tried to think of an episode of Alolan Detective Laki where something like this had happened. Obviously it had never covered this exact situation, because Alolan Detective Laki was a grounded show, and the technology to trap humans inside phones didn't exist yet, but surely they must have been locked in a room at one point.

Usually, the bad guys locked Laki and Smeargle out of the important places, not in. But there was an episode where they'd been locked in the janitor's closet inside a secret lab. Laki had immediately bent a length of wire into a lockpick and let them out.

That wasn't going to help much. Rotom didn't have a length of wire. Or arms.

Farrell had compared what he and Lowell had done to a Pokeball, and those were escapeable, usually. Rotom had never been inside a Pokeball, but getting out had to be pretty intuitive, or it wouldn't happen so often. Even Pokemon who'd already been tied to a Pokeball sometimes managed it.

So if it treated this phone like a Pokeball and tried to break out, maybe that would work. It was possessing the phone, not being contained like it would be in a Pokeball, but the mind was a powerful thing. That was another thing Rotom had learned from television.

Rotom gathered all its strength, and rattled.

A shadow moved over the sun. Incineroar opened an eye, and prepared to snap at Lycanroc for bothering it again.

It wasn't Lycanroc at all. It was just a cloud, and not a very big one. Lycanroc was pacing a little way down the beach, so it must have finally given up bothering Incineroar for a rematch. It knew Incineroar was trying to nap.

Incineroar closed its eye.

"Alola!"

Incineroar recognised Professor Burnett's voice, so it didn't bother looking. It could never figure out her schedule, so it had started assuming she could pop up at any time.

"Alola!" said Professor Kukui, from the porch. Incineroar hadn't heard him come out. Maybe it had really fallen asleep for a while.

Lycanroc gave its own greeting. Incineroar pretended to be asleep.

Kukui and Burnett made boring small talk about their research for a while, and then Burnett said "Is Rotom here?"

Incineroar opened its eye again.

"I haven't seen it," said Kukui, in a thoughtful voice. "Why do you ask?"

It had been some time since Rotom had left to talk at some... phone builders or whatever they were. It had been pretty upset, although Incineroar couldn't remember what exactly had been so distressing. The phone humans had been committing some cruelty, probably.

"Rotom said something about going to the city on its time off," said Burnett. "I figured it would check in at home, too."

Burnett and Kukui started discussing some magazine Rotom had appeared in, and Incineroar tuned out again. It didn't seem to have anything to do with where Rotom was now, and that was what was beginning to worry Incineroar.

Rotom was very small, and loud, and weak, and those phone humans sounded like the worst kind of humans. And it hadn't come back from confronting them.

Incineroar jumped up and ran in the direction Rotom had gone. Maybe it was okay, and it had just gone back to its job on that giant boat. But it seemed to be Rotom's favourite thing to describe everything it was doing in great detail, to anyone who might listen. Why would it stop now?

Incineroar reached the city beachfront, stopped, and realised that Rotom had never mentioned where exactly it was going. Maybe Incineroar should have tried to find that out first. Or asked Rowlet or Lycanroc for tracking help.

But that felt like going soft. Besides, Lycanroc wasn't the only one with a sense of smell.

Incineroar took a few deep sniffs. The smell of the sea was overpowering, but there were traces of the people and Pokemon who'd passed through the area. It could just about distinguish Rotom's scent of electricity, warm plastic, and raw life force. Rotom had been here recently.

It had rained this morning and cleared out the smells of the previous day, making Rotom's usually faint scent stand out a bit more. For once, Incineroar didn't mind the rain too much.

The reason it hated the rain wasn't that it was a cat, or that it was a Fire type, but people could think that if they wanted.

Incineroar nearly lost the scent a few times, but the trail eventually led it to a run-down part of town, with a lot of empty buildings. Incineroar knew the area. It had lived here when it was very young, although not for very long, as far as it could remember.

Rotom's scent was strongest outside one specific building, like it had there waited there for a while. Incineroar looked through the automatic doors, but it seemed deserted. Cautiously, it went inside, keeping an ear out for any yells of outrage.

It couldn't hear anything, though the lobby did smell like humans used it regularly.

There was a metal set of doors nearby, with a sign across it. Incineroar knew what those were for. They led to a box that moved to other floors if you pressed the right buttons. Incineroar hadn't been tall enough back then to get it to work right, and it didn't want to waste time on it now.

Luckily, there also should be some stairs around here. Incineroar had heard some humans call them stairs for Fire types, but Stoutland had always been able to use them, so that was just another weird thing humans said.

Incineroar opened doors until it found the cramped, mildewy room that contained the stairs. Strangely, the room smelled even more strongly of humans than the lobby. It hurried up, stopping at every landing to figure out what floor the humans used.

After a while, a faint rattling became audible, getting louder as Incineroar climbed. Maybe it was a Rattata, but it didn't sound like one, and it didn't smell like one either, even at this distance.

Incineroar stopped at a landing that smelled more like humans than the rest. As well as the rattling, it could now hear faint talking, though it wasn't loud enough to carry much meaning.

It opened the door and moved towards the talking, then hesitated. It had caught a whiff of something that almost smelled like Rotom, but sharper. It wasn't exactly the same as the scent it had followed here, but it smelled like spirit, and it smelled like electricity. And it was coming from the same place as the rattling.

Incineroar threw open the door to the rattling room and said "Roar!"

The room looked to be empty, but it didn't smell that way. The rattling, and the smell, were coming from some kind of rectangular device on a messy workbench. Incineroar picked it up, and nearly dropped it again.

There were eyes on the screen. They were faint, and Incineroar could see the screen behind them, but they were definitely eyes, and they were almost definitely Rotom's eyes.

The eyes had widened when Incineroar had picked it up, and now writing was slowly appearing on the screen. Incineroar had no idea what it said, so it ignored it.

So, Rotom had been removed from its Pokedex, and put into this thing, and it didn't seem very happy about it. And it obviously couldn't talk, or Incineroar would have already heard all about what had happened, how it had happened, and how Rotom felt about it.

There was one big button at the bottom of the device, so Incineroar tried pressing it. The screen changed, but not to a picture that meant anything to Incineroar. It tried knocking on the screen, and then swiping its finger over it. Nothing seemed to help.

This wasn't getting them anywhere. Incineroar shifted its hands so that it was holding onto the device from both ends, taking care not to cover up the eyes. Then it snapped the thing in two.

Incineroar was the last person Rotom had expected to see out here. It hadn't even seemed to care that much about these humans' phone crimes, but now it was here. And that was good, because Rotom was beginning to wonder if it was even strong enough to break out of a Pokeball. Maybe only battling Pokemon could do that.

Rotom was pretty sure Incineroar couldn't read, but it opened up the note-taking app anyway. It didn't have the permissions to use the app directly, but it had found a couple of memory addresses that it could modify in order to force letters to appear. Rotom could only send one bit at a time, so it was slow, but it worked.

It had got to "HELP M" when Incineroar dismissed the app. Rotom couldn't tell if it had understood, but at least it seemed to be trying to use the phone. Maybe it would stumble on a way to get Rotom out.

Wait, why was it holding the phone like that? Incineroar had got really strong since it had evolved. If it wasn't careful, it might...

Incineroar broke the phone in half. Rotom screamed, and snapped back together. Confused, it flew around the room. It had to get to safety. It had been ejected so hard that it couldn't think of anything else.

Rotom darted towards a wall socket, and Incineroar grabbed it by the head spike. Rotom strained. What was... where was...

The panic faded. Rotom remembered what was going on. It also realised it had been repeating the same thing about darkness, being trapped, and having to escape over and over. That was embarrassing, but at least it hadn't blacked out this time. And it could talk again. Not to humans, but at the moment it was hard to care.

It thanked Incineroar, and tried to explain its behaviour. It theorised that what had just happened was a survival instinct that allowed for quick action in the event of--

Incineroar let go, and interrupted to ask if it was all right, and about what the humans had done. Rotom explained as best it could. Pokemon speech was good for getting your exact emotional state across, but humans had words for some very specific concepts that would have helped.

It had to get back to its Pokedex. Who knew what those inventors could be doing with it? It told Incineroar that it was going home, and headed out the door and down the corridor.

Incineroar grabbed it by the spike again. "Roar." They were in the other direction, apparently.

Maybe Rotom should stick with Incineroar for a while.

They headed in the direction Incineroar had indicated, while Rotom tried to ignore the urge to break away and fly into the building's wiring. It would be safer and faster to travel that way, but it was out of practice at riding electrical currents, and being inside a wire didn't seem much more comfortable than being exposed in the open air anymore. It hadn't spent so long outside its Pokedex since that incident with the washing machine.

There was also the time it had been tricked out of its Pokedex one time by Meowth, right after Meowth had told his unbelievable story, but that barely counted. The Pokedex had been right there, and Meowth had apparently forgotten how move typings worked. Rotom had never realised its Pokedex was so valuable, but it was an amazing piece of machinery.

It needed it back.

Rotom heard familiar voices, and picked up the pace. Incineroar told it to wait, because it might be dangerous, and there might be another trap. It said it would handle it. Rotom started to list every reason why it would be fine, but while it was talking, Incineroar threw open the door and roared.

The roar was directed at the room's occupants, but it meant something like "inside hot-food-box safety." So reluctantly, Rotom entered the room behind Incineroar and flew into a microwave sitting in a little kitchenette area. Rotom didn't like it, but it probably was a good idea to stay out of sight at the moment.

It really did feel wrong to inhabit anything other than its Pokedex these day. It was like Rotom's shape had been permanently changed from spending so much time in the Pokedex, although that was impossible. Or, it was like it had put on its waterproof cover, and there were crumbs in it.

Actually, this microwave just seemed to be full of crumbs. And some grease. It really needed cleaning.

Lowell and Farrell were sitting at a table, fiddling with something. Rotom squinted, then yelled "Bi!" That was... That was its Pokedex! They'd taken it apart! It almost wanted to jump off the shelf the microwave was on and slap them.

Almost. It didn't like to hurt people.

It didn't look like they'd heard it. They were totally focused on Incineroar, and Rotom wondered if it was intimidating them. Some Incineroar had that as an Ability, although it was rare, and Rotom had never thought much about Incineroar's Ability before. What other Ability had been observed in Incineroar? Blaze? It was probably Blaze, but without its Pokedex, Rotom couldn't remember.

It was too distracted by Abilities to pay attention to what the humans were saying now, but it tuned back in when half the room started to glow with red light. Lowell was calling something out from a Pokeball. Something big.

Rotom watched with interest as the light solidified into a shaggy, brown mountain of a Pokemon with long, curved tusks. Rotom didn't need its Pokedex to recognise a Mamoswine when it saw one, although it had never met one in person before. It wished it could take a few pictures, though the angle wasn't great.

Mamoswine was so huge that the top of its head brushed the ceiling, but Incineroar immediately tackled it, biting it on the shoulder with Fire Fang. Mamoswine threw Incineroar off with a shrug, to Rotom's confusion. Mamoswine was an Ice and Ground type. Fire should have had more of an effect on it.

Or was it Ice and Ground? Rotom shut its eyes as it tried to remember what else Mamoswine's type could be, but nothing else came to mind. It wanted to help Incineroar out, but it couldn't even remember its opponent's type.

It was so useless without its Pokedex.

Mamoswine only evolved from Piloswine if it knew Ancient Power. Rotom knew that much. But it didn't see how that helped.

"Ancient Power!" said Lowell. "Get him out of here!"

Mamoswine began to glow, and Rotom recalled that Ancient Power was a Rock type move, meaning that Incineroar might be in trouble. Rotom briefly wondered if that made Mamoswine a Rock type, then remembered to yell a warning.

Incineroar glanced at Rotom, and told it to stay hidden. Rotom repeated its warning, and Incineroar turned back to the battle just in time to almost, but not completely dodge the silvery ball that Mamoswine had just thrown at it.

Incineroar flew across the room and landed on its face.

"Now, Earthquake!" said Lowell.

Mamoswine looked back at Lowell in confusion, as Incineroar picked itself up and shook its head.

Farell said "We're on the ninth floor!"

"Uh..." said Lowell. "Disregard my previous communiqué. Mud Bomb!"

Incineroar managed to jump out of the way of the mud, and sent a Fire Blast in Mamoswine's direction. Again, Mamoswine took the full brunt of the attack without seeming very hurt.

Earthquake and Mud Bomb. Mamoswine was very likely a Ground type, like Rotom had thought. Maybe it was only Ground, but that didn't seem right. There were surprisingly few Pokemon that were solely Ground type, and Rotom didn't think Mamoswine was one of them.

Incineroar was beginning to back in the direction of the kitchen nook. It was glowing red slightly, obviously preparing to use another Fire move. It tended to default to fire if it couldn't think of anything else to do.

Mamoswine was a Ground and Ice type. It had to be. Maybe it had some kind of ability that protected it from Fire. Like... Thick Fat, an Ability occasionally found in Rattata. Rotom had no idea if Mamoswine could demonstrate that Ability, but it did look very well-padded.

Yes, if that was true, Mamoswine was definitely stilk an Ice type. And as well as Fire, Ice was also vulnerable to... Rock, Steel, and Fighting. Incineroar knew a Fighting move. It could still turn the tables.

Excited, Rotom flew over Incineroar's head to tell it what it had figured out. "Bi! Bibbibbibbi! Bibibi!"

"Another Rotom?" said Lowell. "What luck!" He pulled out an empty Pokeball, and added "Mamoswine, forget the cat! Mud Bomb! No, Ancient Power!"

"Get out of our microwave!" said Farrell.

"Rotom?" said Rotom. If it couldn't even break out of a phone, it didn't know how it would fare with a real Pokeball. It thought of itself as being pretty resilient, but that ball of power that Mamoswine was charging up was not small. And now that it thought about it, it was also currently a Fire type.

Incineroar grabbed Rotom and did a somersault, catching the Ancient Power on the back. It let go, turned around, punched Mamoswine in the face, and fell back, breathing hard.

Mamoswine swayed, and then collapsed, and Rotom flew in front of Incineroar to tell it that it had deliberately taken damage to boost the power of its Revenge move, and how impressive that was. In a weak voice, Incineroar agreed that that was what it had done.

Lowell stared at Mamoswine. So did Farrell. Lowell recalled it to its Pokeball.

Rotom used the distraction to snatch up its Pokedex. Half of its insides had been removed. It wasn't inhabitable like this. It could repair it, but it might take a while, especially with these mitt-like hands.

It looked at the parts arrayed across the table, and back to the Pokedex in its hands. It wanted to get back in so badly. Maybe it could just... It gathered up all the parts, and dove into them.

The main circuit board was connected to the synthesiser right here, and the two fuses that had been removed went with the other eight... Yes, it was coming together perfectly.

When it was done, Rotom started up the Pokedex, and was relieved to find that its data was unaltered. "I'm back!" it said, then frowned. Its synthesiser was producing a voice several octaves too deep, with much lower fidelity than usual. Actually, it was producing the same voice at several pitches. That was weird.

Also, the humans were staring at it in horror. Incineroar didn't look comfortable either.

Rotom paused to take stock. Everything seemed to be connected. But it wasn't as... internal as it had assumed. Some of the Pokedex's parts had made it inside, but most of them were suspended directly in Rotom's energy field.

"Bibbi..." it said uncertainly. "The Aether Foundation is going to hear about this! And clean your microwave!"

That seemed to cover it. Rotom turned around with some difficulty. This form wasn't as stable in motion as it had thought, but it should be enough to get back to safety.

It left the room with Incineroar, and said "I think I need a bodyguard." Incineroar had done a pretty good job, even if it had needed a push from Rotom in the end.

Incineroar suggested that Rotom learn how to battle on its own.

"How would I record data on my own battles?" said Rotom. "I tried recording my moves in the mirror and it didn't work!" You couldn't get a good impression of what was going on from a single perspective. Especially when the perspective was from its back, where the good camera was.

Incineroar rolled its eyes, but Rotom felt its argument was solid.

Once he was sure that the terrifying Rotom Pokedex had left the building, Lowell said "Memorandum: Never work with Ghost Pokemon."

"Noted," said Farrell, who sounded as shaken as Lowell felt.

"But... You know..." said Lowell. He didn't like to spend much time between projects. As soon as he found the courage to take Mamoswine to the Pokemon Centre, it was onto the next thing. "I've developed a new pitch that will shake the foundation of Pokemon technology as we know it! Picture it: An Incineroar-powered watch. The most powerful watch to ever hit the market!"

Farrell frowned. "An Incineroar... powered watch?"

"Just think of the potential applications!" said Lowell. He'd seen the light now. He'd thought it was just the Masked Royal's Incineroar that was amazing, but it turned out they were all like that. It was an inherent property of the species.

"That's..." said Farrell. He grinned. "I don't know how you come up with this stuff!"

**Author's Note:**

> The phone in this story isn't supposed to be the same kind as the ones actually seen in the show or the games, but I guess they were on to something with the no arms.
> 
> Originally I had Rotom pepper its speech with "roto"s, but since I'm using dub names, I should probably go with dub speech patterns I guess.


End file.
